Northumbria PCC 2021: Labour's Kim McGuinness retains role

Labour's Kim McGuinness has retained her position as Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC).

She won 60% of the vote ahead of Tory Duncan Crute, Lib Dem Peter Maughan and independent Julian Kilburn.

She said: "There is a lot of work to do. It is not a molehill, it's a mountain we have to climb and I think we need to get on to it straight away."

Ms McGuinness was first elected the force's PCC in July 2019 after the resignation of Dame Vera Baird.

No candidate scored the required 50% or more of first choice votes on Thursday so second preferences were then taken into account.

In the first round, Ms McGuinness secured 179,021 (47%) votes ahead of Mr Crute's 118,543 (31%), Mr Kilburn's 45,567 (12%) and Mr Maughan's 40,955 (10%). Some 1,600 ballots were rejected.

The bottom two candidates were then eliminated for the second preference count.

After the second counts, Ms McGuinness had 206,467 votes (60%) to Mr Crute's 139,875 (40%).

There was a 37% turnout this year compared with just 15% in 2019.

In 2019, Ms McGuinness won by almost 6,000 votes while this time it was more than 66,000.

Speaking after the result was declared at the Silksworth sports centre in Sunderland, Ms McGuinness said she was "really proud" of her record as PCC and vowed to work to prevent a potential rise in crime linked to unemployment and deprivation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

She also said she was "really sad" about Labour losing "some really fantastic councillors in our region", which included on Northumberland County Council.

Northumbria Police is the largest police force in the North East covering Sunderland, Gateshead and Newcastle and up through Northumberland to the Scottish border.

The PCC position had previously been held by Labour's Dame Vera since its creation in 2012.

The elections were due to take place in May 2020 but were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ms McGuinness will serve a three-year term until 2024 due to the year lost to Covid-19.

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